Of Mighty Stars
by Sufferingzombie
Summary: Hikari was a lone soldier fighting a losing war...until she met Mighto Gai. OCGai IruKaka IbiAnk
1. Chapter 1

1Me no own, you no sue

Chapter One: Battle and Masks

The battlefield was quiet.

After ten days of nonstop fighting and killing the field was finally quiet and the few survivors from the side that could be considered "victorious" were walking around as if in a daze. All except one. Hikari, the field general of the Yakusha Line, watched her few remaining men with something akin to pity. These men were conscripts, but they had had lives before being conscripted. Not like her. She'd been forced into the military at the age of eight and had been on and off battlefields since then, but these men had been fathers. Workers. Husbands and any number of other things before the inter-system government that ruled this part of the galaxy had decided that they needed to be used as cannon fodder instead. The new conscripts had been put under her command while she was a sergeant major, not six months ago. She was still technically a sergeant major, as evidenced by the tattoo on her face denoting her name, rank and serial number, but the general that she was fighting under knew her well, so when he needed a field general she was promoted on the spot and then demoted again when the battle was over. It was an odd system, but it worked.

Hikari was tired. This battle had taken a lot out of her, she'd killed more than her fair share of soldiers, well over one thousand, but it almost hadn't been enough. If the men under her command had been as skilled as she then the odds would have been only 100 to one in the enemy's favor, not bad odds. But the soldiers she had were no where near as skilled as she herself was; that was a fact. She'd been training since she was eight and had been in and survived more battles than any other conscript in history. With the unskilled fighters she had the odds were more along the lines of 250 to one, closer to the actual difference in numbers.

"Sergeant Major."

Hikari turned and a wan smile crawled onto her face beneath her mask. Jocobo was one of the few she would consider a friend. He was an intimidating man, standing at nearly seven feet with muscle to spare. Regardless of his intimidating look he had a heart of gold and treated Hikari like the sister he'd never had. He loved Hikari and made no effort to hide the fact from anyone, not even their commanding officers. Simply put: where Hikari went so too did Jocobo.

"Jocobo, how many times have I told you not to call me that brother?"

The fierce man smiled warmly at the little sister who vastly outranked him.

"Always one more Kari. We've finished the counts."

"How many?"

"On our side there were 9,542 casualties; approximately 3,000 killed, 6,046 injured and the rest we haven't found yet."

"Approximately?"

"Yeah. Some of the bodies are torn to shreds. There's no way to know how many actually died until we can separate out the parts and count them."

Hikari shuddered and put a hand to her own torn arm before nodding at Jocobo to continue.

"And on the other side there were 100 casualties. No one got off this field."

Hikari nodded happily, her hand clenching slightly around her injured biceps. She had been fighting one of the enemy's more experienced warriors, a warrior that she had met once before with dire consequences. She'd lost her right arm in that battle, and her right eye. In this battle she'd returned the favor before cutting off his head and slicing his body into six equal pieces. It was gruesome, but had made her happy, so she had gone back into battle with a fervor that belied her exhaustion. She hadn't eaten or slept in ten days, not an extremely long amount of time, but too long to be ignored. She would collapse later. Right now she had to get the rest of the survivors off the field and into their tents for some serious sleep. Jocobo must have seen her exhaustion and tsked.

"Kari, you're exhausted. Go to sleep. I'll make sure everyone gets in alright."

"Are you certain 'Cobo? You've been awake almost as long as I have."

"I'm certain sister. Go."

Hikari smiled and nodded before limping slowly back toward the tents that they had set up the day they'd arrived at the field. Her tent was at the back of the mile long line of tents, so she slowly limped her way to it and when she finally got there, exhausted beyond anything she'd been in a long time she immediately collapsed and fell into dreams, not even bothering to take off her armor first.

Maito Gai was a proud man.

He was the kind of man that, once you got past his quirks and rants about the 'flames of youth', you would consider the most loyal and kind friend to have. But there was another side of Maito Gai that no one really saw.

Maito Gai was a lonely man.

The only people who knew this were his 'eternal rival' Hatake Kakashi and the scary snake woman Mitarashi Anko, both of whom he had cultivated close friendships with. Kakashi and Gai had an odd sort of friendship, one that was based in rivalry. When Kakashi had lost his team he had also lost himself. He had allowed himself to fall into the darkness that being a member of the ANBU squad can open up beneath a nin and there was no hope of the copy-nin getting out of the hole by himself. Gai had watched him go to the memorial stone day after day to stare at the names of his teammates and lose himself in his grief, but after two years of this Gai had decided that enough was enough. He'd entered the clearing around the memorial stone with his usual exuberance and proceeded to irritate and prod and poke Kakashi into a challenge. Their first challenge had been to see who could run the most laps around Konoha in three hours. Gai had won and hadn't let Kakashi forget it...until he'd initiated their next challenge. From there the two had proceeded with challenge after challenge and Kakashi had gradually begun coming out of the darkness. He'd begun enjoying life again and Gai had been happy for his friend/rival.

Anko was another story altogether.

Anko was having a bad day, not that she actually had any good ones anymore. She had been at the dango stand when some villager had called her 'snake whore' and riled up some of the other villagers. She was used to it by now, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. She'd been just as betrayed by her sensei as Konoha had, why couldn't anyone understand that? The hokage had accepted her back and made her a special jounin, why couldn't she make any friends? Why wouldn't people let her get on with her life? She was blocking stones that some of the villagers had decided to throw at her, not wanting to use her snakes lest she prove the villagers right, when one struck her in the cheek hard enough to cut it. She'd fallen back a step and the crowd had smelled blood. She tensed, ready for anything...except what happened.

A man in bright green spandex had placed himself between the snake user and the people trying to hurt her. He'd given her an unnaturally bright smile over his shoulder before turning again to the antagonists and beginning to rant about how they were trying to diminish her flames of youth and that their 'unyouthfulness' would be their downfall. He guarded the young woman until the crowd had dispersed, and then he had invited her for dango. She'd accepted with tears in her eyes, happy that someone had accepted her, even if he was a bit strange. Gai had dropped his mask for the first time in a long time and the two had become very good friends, and had been ever since.

Despite having two very good, if violent and perverted friends, Gai was lonely for someone to truly understand him. Kakashi was his best friend and Anko was like a sister, but there was no one that he could really be...himself with. No one would understand that sometimes he wanted to give in to bloodlust and kill all his opponents with a smile on his face. No one would understand that he wanted to cry and rage sometimes. No one would understand that sometimes the 'flames of youth' inside him would dull and darken almost to mere embers and he felt like he was alone in the world. He'd just gotten back from a particularly grueling mission in Rei no kuni, he ended up fighting kumo-nins when the mission wasn't supposed to involve nins at all and two of his teammates had been injured. He'd taken them to the hospital after carrying them for nearly two days straight and was exhausted when he finally arrived home. He quickly changed into his sleeping clothes, black sweats and a white tee shirt, and fell into his bed, sighing happily as he fell into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

1Disclaimer in chapter one

Chapter Two: Meetings and Suspicions

Hikari looked around the Center Realm in relief. She had thought that she was too exhausted to go there that night. The Center Realm was exactly that: a realm in between many others that connected them while preventing unnecessary bleed-over. Anyone could get to the Realm if they had enough power and a true _need_ to go to the Realm. Hikari had first come after the death of her first commander. He'd been the only person considered brass that had ever treated her even remotely like she was actually a human being and his death during the Hissoka Campaign had hit her hard. She had gone to sleep feeling more alone than ever before and longing for someone, anyone to understand. No one she knew would understand that sometimes she didn't _want_ to fight. No one would understand that sometimes she wanted to act like she truly felt, enthusiastic and happy. She was happy naturally and showed it most often, but it wasn't the _exuberant_ happy that she felt. She couldn't show that because that was 'behavior unbecoming a soldier'. The brass didn't like it when their conscripted soldiers showed that regardless of their treatment as third class citizens some of them were still full of the sunshine of life. No one would understand how the so-called "Maiden of Blood" really didn't like bloodshed all the time. How she felt that constant bloodshed, be it her own or someone at the wrong end of her weapon's, was troublesome and sickening. She looked around the Center Realm and sighed happily. The Realm was covered in a thick layer of bright green grass, an anomaly for Hikari considering that very few planets had such tame and beautiful plant life, and there was a babbling brook cutting right through the center of the clearing she had ended up in. Every time one went to the Realm they arrived at the place that they most needed and subconsciously wanted to be. It was rare that one met actual people in the Realm, but it did happen. Hikari sighed again when she realized that she was still wearing her armor; she must have forgotten to take it off before sleeping, but quickly adapted by disengaging her helm and chest plate with the two triggers she had for them, one on her throat and one at her hips. She smiled in relief when the helm fragmented and crawled along her face to vanish into the ever-present collar around her neck. She flopped gracelessly onto to grass and tucked her arms behind her head, looking up at the almost too blue sky.

"I wonder if this is what Earth looks like?"

Gai had never seen such a lovely place and he was actually unsure about whether or not he was actually asleep. The last thing he remembered was closing his eyes while staring at the ceiling of his apartment and opening them and staring at a pretty, green clearing with a brook cutting through its center and a blue sky overhead. He looked around and saw a black spot not too far away and slowly, cautiously approached it, wondering if it was an enemy and exactly what was going on.

"I wonder if this is what Earth looks like?"

The voice is definitely female, but it is lower than most females and slightly raspy, as if the speaker had done a lot of screaming or yelling in their life and damaged their throat. Gai crept a bit closer and stood a bit stunned when he finally got a clear look at the woman. She had short violet hair that was braided into many braids and had many decorations incorporated into it and a lithe body, what he could see of it. She was wearing gold gauntlets and black greaves, she had on tight black breeches that complemented the dark purple of the cuisse on each of her thighs. She wore dark green, almost black side wings and had heavy service boots to complete the bottom half of her outfit. The top half was taken up by the gauntlets and a pauldron for each of the shoulders. She looked fierce, but she was obviously at rest, reclining on the grass and staring at the sky. Gai thought he must have made some sound because faster than he thought possible for someone in so much armor the woman had stood and spun, falling into a fighting stance as she quickly sized him up. Gai slowly raised his hands in a gesture of non-violence and smiled his sunshine-bright smile.

Hikari was surprised that she didn't sense him sooner. He was certainly...green enough. As she looked at the man standing with his hands up beside his head like he was some kind of bank hostage she realized that it was his _aura_ that was green. His clothes were not, but she wouldn't doubt that fact that green was his favorite color, very possibly the only color he would wear. His aura was that green, a deep forest green that showed nothing but benevolence and kindness, but there was something deeply buried...just a hint of the darkness she experienced every day. She relaxed slightly at the man's smile and couldn't help but smile back.

"Hello lovely lady. I am Maito Gai, the lovely Green Beast of Konohagakure. Would you happen to know where I am?"

Hikari stared for a moment before her slight smile became positively blinding.

"Hello Green Beast Maito Gai! I am the Maiden of Blood from Grendel in the eastern quadrant of the gamma sector, Sergeant Major Hikari. You are in the Center Realm."

"Center Realm?"

Hikari sighed and sat, patting the grass next to her to invite him to sit with her. The tall man took the offered seat and while he was situating himself she took the opportunity to look him over. He was a good looking man, there was no doubt about that. He was obviously strong and dwarfed her own considerable height at 6'4". He had a strange bowl cut, that strangely worked for him and moved almost like he was forcing himself to move slowly. He sat beside her and just smiled, waiting for her explanation of where they were.

"Okay, I'll try to keep this simple. There are an infinite number of realms and dimensions that make up this universe that we all call home. Most of these realms and dimensions are isolated from their neighbors, never to meet or know of each other's existence, but some of these places are connected by places like the one we're in now. Center Realms basically connect a number of realities and/or dimensions together so that if the need of someone is great enough they can find something that they need. I myself first came here after my commander died. I needed the peace that this place created for me, but I've never met someone else here before. I didn't even know that it was possible to meet people from other realms here."

"How do you know that I am from another realm?"

Gai was surprised at his own soft tone. He figured that the peace of this place, that the peace and strictly controlled feeling of strength coming from the woman beside him made him bank his normally bright flames. The woman looked over at him and he finally got a good look at her eyes, not knowing when she had disengaged the visor that had previously hidden them, and just barely held back a gasp and their beauty and oddity. Her eyes were bi-colored, like Kakashi's, but that was where the similarities ended. Her right eye had three slash marks through it and the eye in the socket was a clear, pure amethyst while her left eye was bright aqua-green. They were happy eyes that he could literally see flames in, in the backs of her pupils were small mage flames (not that he knew what those were), but there was something sadly familiar in the shadows that buttressed the flames. This woman had killed. A lot. She smiled at him softly.

"Because you don't look like anyone in my realm. You aren't beaten down or world weary. You definitely aren't a conscript because your face is clear and you aren't a regular or you wouldn't be talking to me as respectfully as you are. So therefore you are not from my realm."

"And how do you know that I am not your enemy?"

Hikari laughed out loud at this.

"If you were Maito-san then you'd be between seven and eight feet tall and either very lizard-like or very hyena-like. Either way you would not be human."

Gai's eyebrows rose at this declaration and he became excited and more like himself.

"Really? Tell me Hikari, what is your world like? And please, call me Gai!"

"Well...Gai...it is a sad world. Humans left the Earth just over four hundred years ago and now I'm not even sure that many even know where it is. I know I don't. Anyway, we've colonized many of the planets in the surrounding galaxy. About twenty years ago though, we met a species of alien from another galaxy, Basar 13 I think, and realized very quickly that they were no friends of ours. They called themselves the Urll!vas. Very difficult to pronounce and their language is literally impossible for a human to pull off. A research vessel ran into them first and was completely obliterated. The war started shortly after that with them declaring war on us and immediately attacking every outpost that they could find. The war got worse and worse until it stretched across the whole of the human-settled planets and conscripts had to be used because the volunteer military simply wasn't enough. The youngest conscript ever taken was eight and their first battle was only two weeks after their training had started. That conscript is still alive and in fact is the oldest conscript to still be involved in the war effort. The war has been terrible, and there doesn't look like there is an end in sight." Hikari sighed, silently berating herself for unloading on someone whom she had just barely met. She looked up into his chocolate colored eyes and smiled in a self-depreciating manner.

"Sorry for unloading on you Gai. Just...needed to tell someone."

Gai was quiet and his voice was very subdued when he asked the one question that she didn't want him to ask.

"Who...tell me Hikari...who was the youngest conscript? Do you know him?"

Hikari laughed brightly, this had long since stopped hurting her.

"Gai, I am the youngest conscript. Well, now I'm the longest serving and highest ranking."

" I am a jounin of Konoha. Is your ranking similar?"

"I don't know," Hikari shrugged, "but my rank is one of leadership and strategizing."

"My rank is also one of leadership and strategizing! We are some of the best in the village!"

"I am the best in the army!"

Hikari was feeling the effects of Gai's infectious personality and she giggled when he laughed at her imitation of him.

"You're funny Gai."

Gai merely smiled and opened his mouth to respond when the oddest thing happened.

"Sergeant Major, you have to wake up! There is a second and third wave coming, 500 strong each! We need you to hold them off long enough to get reinforcements here! C'mon Hikari, I know you're tired, but we need you!"

Hikari scrambled to her feet and looked at Gai apologetically.

"I'm sorry Gai, but I have to go save my boys. I hope to see you again soon!"

And with that Hikari vanished into the air of the Center Realm, leaving Gai alone with just the scent of her sweat and the blood of her enemies to remember her by.


	3. Chapter 3

1Chapter Three: War, Friends and Meeting Again

Hikari was even more exhausted then she had been before. The battle had been terrible, she was the only one able to fight and had been injured severely during the fifteen hour battle to hold the line until they could get reinforcements. On top of that she'd been captured and tortured for three days until Jocobo had found her and gotten her out. She had been run through with a pike in her left hip and it had forced her to double her efforts as she couldn't move without immense pain. She'd also had a sword slice open her back from her right shoulder blade to her left hipbone. That one stung like a son of a bitch and she winced every time it pulled. Her left arm had second degree burns from wrist to elbow and her right arm's servos were in desperate need of re-tightening, considering she'd lifted nearly twice the amount of weight that they were okayed for. She looked the epitome of pathetic as she limped back to camp at Jocobo's side, too exhausted to worry about anything but sleep. She didn't stop at the med tent or the 'war room', just carried on to her personal tent before hitting the trigger for her armor and sighing as it vanished into her belt. She grunted as she fell face first to the bed and fell into a dreamless sleep just short of death.

Gai hadn't slept well the night after meeting Hikari, not knowing if she was okay. The idea that there were other worlds out there was amazing and fascinating to the young taijutsu expert and he found himself thinking about Hikari all throughout the next day. He was very distracted when he challenged Kakshi again, and lost, but forced himself into a serious mood when summoned by the hokage for a mission. It was a B-ranked mission that he would be working with a few of his fellow jounin on; a retrieval mission on the border of fire country. He knew that he would have to have his head in the game and forced himself to stop worrying about Hikari until his mission was complete.

Gai looked around the Center Realm for the lithe form of his newest friend and gasped when he caught sight of her. Hikari was lying beside the brook and she did not look good. There was a small pool of blood beside her and she was swathed in bandages that were slowly turning red from the blood still escaping from her wounds. Her visor was disengaged and her mask was slowly disintegrating, going back into its container in her collar. The left side of her face was tilted into the ground and her hair was draped over the right half so that Gai couldn't see her face at all. She was on her back and her arms were stretched out to her sides.

"Hikari?"

She twitched and her head raised slightly.

"Gai?"

Her voice was weak and that worried Gai more than anything else. He hurried over to her and carefully pulled her into his lap, careful of her injuries and not to jostle her. He brushed the hair out of her face and for the first time got a glimpse of her face. Her eyes were closed and there was a blood smear on her right cheek going from her ear to her chin along the jaw line. On her left cheek were three chevrons with a star at the base and a nine digit number with her name tattooed from her cheek bone to her jaw. She had a heart shaped face and delicate features that were strangely enhanced by the three scars on the right side of her face and the tattoo on the left. Gai set the injured soldier across his lap and held her delicately, like a flower that was on the verge of wilting, unsure as to what to do for her as he was no medic. He felt her hand come up and grasp his wrist carefully.

"Gai, it's okay, I'm not going to die I'm just...in a bit of pain. Luckily I'm used to pain so it's all good." Hikari laughed a little at the end, like it was all a big joke when she got hurt.

"Oh Hikari! You are so very youthful that you would bear this pain to make me feel better!"

Hikari's smile widened, even through the pain of it tugging on her damaged facial muscles. She really liked Gai's enthusiastic personality.

"Gai, I think that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Help me treat these wounds."

And it was a beautiful start for them.

Over the next year the two met frequently in the Center Realm and became closer. Gai eventually told Hikari all about his life and about how pressured he felt to stay in the mold that he'd created for himself when he became a jounin, knowing that if he changed his behaviors too drastically that he could be mistaken for a spy and possibly killed. Hikari told Gai about the laws that prevented conscripts from marrying without the permission of six different senators, two of whom hated her guts. Gai talked about his friends Kakashi and Anko and what he did to make them come back to life after they would fall into depression. Hikari told him about Jocobo and the four hundred or so men who called her commander and followed her into battle. Gai comforted Hikari when she was raped during a senate mandated training exercise and allowed her to imprint herself with his scent. Hikari listened with a small, happy smile as Gai talked enthusiastically about his new genin team. He laughed with her when she described some of the antics of her men when they'd managed to get to the red light district in one of the colonies. She comforted him when a mission went bad and he lost the two nin that had been his partners for it. Over the year they shared in each other's pain, joy, frustration and rage. They came up with training plans together and strategies. Gai taught Hikari how to access the gates and she taught him how to access the energy around him to add to his chakra, something that was infinitely safer than using the gates, and how to use a pair of sickles. Finally, after a year of becoming the closest of friends Hikari realized that she had fallen for her friend. They were sitting with their feet dangling into the brook, which had deepened over the year, and laughing about one of Gai's students. Apparently Lee was a natural drunken boxer.

"You should keep a flask on you when you go on missions!"

"And why would I do that my youthful friend?"

"Well think about it! Who in their right mind expects a thirteen year old to be a drunken boxer? He's the perfect secret weapon that you can fall back on if you get into trouble!"

Gai thought about that for a few seconds and finally smiled brightly, his teeth sparkling in the sunshine and laughed.

"You are simply full of wonderful ideas my young star!"

Hikari blushed and for once thanked the position of both her tattoos and her scars, as they hid the growing pink spot quite well.

Hikari squinted as pain rocketed up her left arm, but held steady as the diamond formed slowly between her hands. She had wanted to give something to Gai for his birthday, but knew that nothing could be taken out of the Center Realm unless it had a biological component, so she decided to make him something. She was making him a pendant. It was an pear shaped diamond, cut the same on both sides, with a gray-red lily in the center. The lily was made of her blood, infused into the diamond at its creation. It was a symbol of her favorite nick name, the one that only Gai knew as he was the one to give it to her. They'd been talking after another battle and he was tending to Hikari's wounds again when he'd absently called her 'iron lily'. She had frozen and he had apologized over and over again until she calmly and quietly asked him why he had called her that. He had blushed an told her in a halting, stammering manner that she was an iron lily. Delicate and beautiful, but with a cold edge and a steel spine that would allow her to weather the worst the universe had to throw at her. She had blushed deeply and smiled at him before giving him permission to call her that whenever he wanted. She secretly called him her beast, but hadn't actually called him that to his face yet, being too shy to actually do it. She smiled as she wiped the sweat off her brow and stared at the diamond, making sure it was perfect. She then pulled a strand of her hair out of her scalp and turned it into an unbreakable silver chain. The pendant was only the size of a quarter, but it was some of the finest work Kari had ever done and she was very proud of herself. She quickly pocketed the pendant when she heard one of her men, a runner by the name of Gregor, nicknamed Ostrich after the fastest bird on Earth, came trotting up to her tent. His footsteps were easily distinguished as they were steady and evenly spaced. He tapped on the tent flap and moved it aside at her assent.

"Sergeant Major, the senators want to see you in the colony's central meeting room ASAP."

Hikari sighed and grumbled as she stood an armored up.

"Sanctimonious pricks."

Ostrich snickered and walked with his commander as she strode toward what would be their destiny.


	4. Chapter 4

1Chapter Four: Suicide Missions and Rages

Hikari looked at the senators in disbelief and rage. The senators looked back at her with different expressions. Harold Marks and Victor Lyon were sympathetic; Nathan Rever and Uriel Harvey were apathetic and Justin Banks and Reginald Great were ecstatic.

"Let me get this straight. You want me to take my four hundred men and go to Orion, a planet that we know is overrun with Urll!vas, and wipe them out. Four hundred against an estimated two _billion_. Is any of this penetrating those thick, empty skulls? It is im.pos.sible. All you're doing is getting me and my men killed."

Great smirked and nodded.

"That may be so Sergeant Major, but it doesn't change the fact that you will take your men to Orion and eliminate the threat. You have one year to make sure your men are ready for it and be glad you're getting that much time."

"And if I refuse?"

Hikari's voice would put glaciers to shame, but Great's smirk merely widened.

"Then you will all be tried and executed for treason. As conscripts, I doubt anyone would care."

Hikari seethed for a moment before hanging her head. She had no choice. She spun on her heel and stormed out, her mind already planning a way to save her men and accomplish the mission all at once.

Gai had a bad feeling.

He wasn't sensitive like Yamanaka Inoichi, whose bad feelings almost always heralded something terrible, but he did trust his instincts and they were practically screaming at him that something was going to happen. He was called to the Hokage's office with his team and as they stood waiting for Sarutobi to receive them the feeling grew.

"Ah! Hello Gai-san, Lee-kun, Neji-kun and Tenten-chan."

"Hello Sandaime-sama," Gai bowed. The others in the room looked at him in worry at his subdued behavior. The hokage looked at the team and politely gave them their next D-ranked mission and told them that their teacher would follow them shortly. The team left without a fuss and soon Gai stood alone in the hokage's office.

Sarutobi knew his jounin and their quirks. Kakashi with his perverted book, Anko and her crazy act, Asuma and his cigarettes, her knew them all. He knew that Gai often hid himself behind the mask of the boisterous 'green beast of Konoha' and tried to keep others from seeing him anything but happy and hyper. The Gai standing in front of him now though was a contemplative Gai, a Gai closer to the real Gai then anyone had seen in years.

"Gai-san, is there something wrong?" Gai looked at the hokage and shook his head.

"No hokage-sama, but...I have a bad feeling about a friend of mine...I fear for her safety."

The hokage nodded solemnly.

"Who is this woman? Perhaps I can help?"

"No Sandaime. She...is from another realm. I met her in dreams."

That made Sarutobi sit up and pay attention.

"You've been to Center Realm?"

Gai looked shocked and Sarutobi chuckled with amusement.

"Gai-san, I am old and have seen many things. Center Realm was merely one of those things, though I am surprised that you met someone there. I didn't know that was possible. So who is she?"

Gai gathered himself and an unconscious smile crawled onto his face.

"Her name is Hikari and she is the commander of a battalion of men in her world. They are fighting a war against an alien species who want nothing more than the annihilation of humanity. She is a kind woman, but is also as vicious as Orochimaru ever was when dealing with her enemies. She has earned the moniker of "the Bloody Maiden" from her allies and enemies alike."

Sarutobi smiled softly at the absolutely besotted look on Gai's expressive face. The Green Beast of Konoha had fallen in love with his friend. The hokage nodded.

"She sounds like a very unique person Gai-san. I'm sure that everything will work out. Now go join your team."

"Hai!"

When Gai arrived in the Center Realm he found Hikari raging. She was throwing lightning bolts of pure violet energy all over the place and hollering at the tops of her lungs while swearing in more languages then Gai knew existed. He watched in worry and awe as she began glowing violet and black and threw her head back before screaming in rage and worry and so many other emotions that Gai wasn't sure he could name them all. Finally Hikari seemed to deflate and she fell to her knees, her chin falling to her chest and she sobbed, just once before covering her face and muffling it. Gai decided that it was a good time to interfere and smiled at the shocked squeak that came from his Iron Lily's mouth when he came up behind her and scooped her up to hold her tightly to his chest. He strode to a large rock that had showed up beside the brook months before and sat, keeping Hikari tight to his chest and sitting her in his lap.

"What is wrong Iron Lily? What has happened to make you so angry?"

Hikari swiped angrily at the tears on her face and growled. She explained what the senators had done, what they'd ordered and how she didn't know how to save her men. Gai was appalled at the lack of caring from the men in charge of the war effort, to throw away soldiers like that simply because they were conscripted into the military instead of volunteering. He hugged his friend and secret love tightly until she'd regained control of herself and then they sat and tried to hash out plans to save the men. They didn't come up with anything, but Hikari go to give Gai his birthday present. She reached into her pocket during a lull in the conversation and clenched her hand around the diamond, infusing it with a small bit of her love and power, before pulling it out of her pocket and turning to her friend.

"Gai, I made something for your birthday."

The boisterous green man smiled brightly and nodded for Kari to go on.

"Well, I know that only biological substances, or something connected to a biological component, can travel from Center Realm to a realm besides the one that the object originated from. That is why the sickles I loaned you stayed here when you went home, but I found a loophole of sorts. If you infuse something biological into something non-biological, then it will pass through the realms without a problem. So when I was trying to figure out what to give you for your birthday I realized that I would need to use my blood and...well...just-here!"

Hikari shoved the necklace into Gai's hands with a bright blush and a smile. Gai was awed at the perfection of the diamond.

"Hikari...how...where did you find this? What is in the center?"

"I made it. And the lily in the center is made from my blood."

Gai was even more astonished than before.

"You made this? How?" Hikari shrugged slightly, a shy smile on her face.

"I'm a level ten black cord mage. The most powerful of mages, making gems is easy. It was infusing the blood into the stone so that the gem actually became part biological that was the difficult part. Changing something nature always is. By the way, that diamond will never get cold. It gives off its own heat and can keep you warm in cold climates."

Gai looked at Hikari in astonishment and then reacted. Gai was not known in Konoha for his restraint, a misconception that he had purposefully nurtured as part of his mask, and while he did believe in the springtime of youth and the power of love he wasn't nearly as loud as he'd forced himself to be at home. He was more normal around Hikari, but realizing what she had made for him; what she had created and sacrificed, he couldn't contain himself.

He pulled her tight to his chest and kissed her with everything he had.

Hikari's world shrunk to encompass only Gai and the feeling of his lips on hers. The mage fire that normally burned low in her heart and soul flared brightly to life and she didn't notice when it burst through her skin to halo the pair. Her soul sang as Gai hugged her impossibly tight and she threw herself into the kiss with everything she was. There was no hesitation. She instinctively re-circulated the oxygen in their lungs so that they wouldn't have to separate for air, but too soon they did draw apart. The two stared at one another until Gai blushed and began to stammer apologies. Kari ignored it and merely smiled brightly enough to rival Gai at his brightest. Hikari quickly grew tire of his stammering and yanked him in for another kiss, this one far more passionate then the first.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Courtship and Rings

That began their courtship. They courted for six long months, seeing each other in the Center Realm and joyfully becoming accustomed to being soul mates, for that is what they were. Hikari had explained to Gai that every mage above a red cord, only the forest and black cords, had a soul mate for sure. They were necessary to anchor the magic that the mages outputted. Without that anchor during high level magicks the mage would die, torn to shreds by the magic that they were so connected to. They were, however, at an impasse. Gai wanted to propose to Hikari and begin their life together, but she had told him of the laws that prevented her wedding anyone. He kicked the problem around in his head, but couldn't come up with any kind of solution. He finally decided to go to the hokage and hope the man called the "Professor" could come up with something to help him.

Sarutobi watched from his chair as Maito Gai, the most enthusiastic jounin he'd ever had the honor of meeting, dropped his face into his hands in despair. The hokage was sympathetic to Gai, the man truly loved the woman warrior he'd met all those months ago and truly wanted to marry her. Sarutobi puffed thoughtfully on his pipe and slowly a smile grew on his face as a truly simple idea came to him. He told Gai of his idea and Gai, predictably, literally jumped for joy and bowed in thanks to the hokage. He would tell no one of his proposal or nuptials, only the hokage would know of them. Gai left the hokage's office to commission a special adamantum ring with a vein of blood from a jeweler friend of his. As he made his way through the bustling streets he remembered a drawing that Hikari had given him; something that she had said was important to her people...

_Flashback_

"_What is this Iron Lily?"_

_"This is a drawing of a celtic knot. These were important to my ancestors, who lived on an island called Ireland on Earth. The knots have no beginning and no end and were put on many important artifacts and writings of all kinds. I've always loved knots, they remind me that no matter what happens everything becomes okay again because life is just one big circle. Where things have started, so shall they end._

_End flashback_

Hishoka Fiori had been shocked when his old friend Gai had commissioned a ring from him. Gai wouldn't explain, but Fiori could tell by the smile on Gai's face that there was a woman that he loved beyond life itself and the jeweler couldn't help but be happy for his friend. He looked at the drawing that Gai had given him and smiled. The intricate knotwork would be a challenge, but when he was finished it would be the loveliest ring he had ever made.

_Three weeks later_

Gai watched as Hikari paced angrily. She had been ordered into a trap that the 'brass' had known was a trap and she was pissed that she had lost four of her men. She had watched each of them die and had finally snapped and destroyed the army that dared to kill her boys. She had become the Maiden of Blood and had made it rain blood over the battlefield that was once a bustling colony. The deaths of her men were bad, but the thing that had hit her the hardest was the destruction of the orphanage of Phoenix Three. Phoenix Three was the third of six habitable planets orbiting the star known as Kesller, deep in the Milky Way galaxy. It had always been a peaceful colony with a huge orphanage that served thirteen planets. The Green Haven Orphanage was a massive structure of steel and concrete that could comfortably house over two thousand children of all ages and in fact was very much like an apartment building. The lower gravity of Phoenix Three allowed the building to be exceedingly tall without losing integrity, so the fact that it was well over five hundred stories tall gave it so much room. The orphanage had a special place in Hikari's heart because it was the first place where humans, full, colony humans, had shown her any kind of respect. She was ten at the time, treated as the third class citizen that being a conscript made her when she'd first come to the orphanage during her off time. She'd been injured during a nearby battle and had wound up in the orphanage medical bay for treatment. She had been shocked to see that they were actually treating her like any other citizen, giving her the best treatment that they could and feeding her everyday. She had become fast friends with the head of the orphanage and had laughed with many of the children. After that first visit she had made it a point to stop in every chance that she got and meet the new arrivals as well as help them with anything that they needed. After she'd gotten her right arm replaced she'd begun helping with heavy lifting and things of that nature and after the clusterfuck that was the Nova Campaign the orphanage had taken her in so that she could recover, not just her strength, but her mental faculties as well. Needless to say, the Green Have Orphanage was special to Hikari, as was the colony surrounding it, one of the few places that conscripts were treated with kindness and fairness. To see the colony so completely devastated, so destroyed that the hyper-sensitive sensors Hikari's troop had could pick up no signs of life, had enraged every one of her men. The thing that had sent Hikari over the edge though was the sight of the orphanage, nothing more than a bombed out pile of smoking rubble, bodies strewn about in the most horrible ways imaginable. Hikari's men, those two dozen whom she'd ordered to come with her for a sweep, had backed away quickly when her eyes, visible because she had yet to put on her HUD visor, had darkened to a deep navy, almost black color and she had thrown her head back and _roared_ like the dragon that she was. Black scales had peppered her body, invisible due to her armor, and her visor had activated automatically. Her hands had become tipped with black claws dripping a viscous acid and she had begun running. She had run, faster then any of her boys could follow, and found the battalion of the enemy who had destroyed the colony. Then she had gone to town. She literally tore them apart, all eight hundred of them. By the time she had come out of her rage she was covered liberally from head to toe in their greenish gray blood and not a single creature had survived. It wasn't until she'd fallen out of the rage-haze that she'd heard the battle going on a few miles away, where her boys had engaged the other part of the enemy's forces. She had nearly panicked and raced to the scene only to find that her boys had killed the enemy, but not without casualties. Four dead and twenty injured. Afterward Jocobo had tended to the wounds that she'd received during her rage, she hadn't noticed that she was injured during her rampage, and then closed her tent up and refused to answer any summons. She just wanted to get away.

When Hikari had appeared in Center Realm there had been giant rocks there all ready for her to destroy. She had done so with remarkable abandon. She idly noted Gai's appearance and wrapped up her raging so that when she turned to regard him she looked at least semi-sane.

"Hello Gai. How are your students?"

"They are well Iron Lily, but that is not important right now. Why are you so angry?"

Hikari clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, unsure about how to tell him all that had happened. Unsure about whether or not she could do it without losing control and breaking down into sobs. Gai laid a hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a hug and that was it. Hikari clenched the soft material of his tee shirt into her fists and buried her face in his shirt as she began to cry.


	6. Chapter 6

1Chapter Six: Engagements and Weddings

Hikari hadn't had a decent cry since she was taken from her home on Griffin to be trained in combat. She had avoided crying, pushing the pain and anguish of years of abuse, killing, torture and everything else into the deepest part of her heart and mind in an effort to forget about it. So when Gai offered support, wanting and expecting nothing...she cracked and grabbed him close to cry. Years of pent up angst and pain came out over the hour and a half long crying jag and by the time she pulled away from Gai she felt exhausted, but much better overall. She looked up into the face of the man she had come to love and smiled a full smile.

Gai reaffirmed the opinion that she was beautiful.

He looked down at the love of his life and couldn't hold himself back from leaning down and kissing her softly, elated when she responded instantly. This went on until he ran out of air and he pulled away gasping.

"My Iron Lily, perhaps this is a bad time, but...I have to ask you something."

Hikari looked into Gai's brown eyes and smiled wanly.

"Yes Gai?"

Gai was a nervous wreck, sweating bullets as he pulled the ring he'd had his friend make out of his pocket and presented it to Hikari. Her eyes widened as she took in the Celtic design and she looked at Gai, confusion obvious.

"Gai, what-"

"Hikari, will you do me the honor of becoming _my_ Iron Lily?"

Hikari was utterly dumbstruck.

"Gai...you know the laws. I told you! I can't-"

"Maybe not in your world."

"What?"

"Hikari, if we can bring the Sandaime hokage here, which he says shouldn't be too hard since he has been here before during the magnificent springtime of his youth, then he can marry us by the laws of the village. We would be married according to Konoha law and he would put us in the records as a married ninja couple."

Hikari was speechless. The opportunity to marry...to have a husband...and the magic that was an integral part of her would acknowledge it...which would mean that her facial tattoo would change to reflect the fact that she would have a last name. She would be married to the man that she had fallen in love with.

There was only one answer to give.

Gai waited with bated breath as Hikari continued to look at him in shock. Shortly he began to sweat. What if she said no? What if she never wanted to see him again? What if-

"Yes."

-she said that. What? She'd...

Gai looked at Hikari in something akin to awe before throwing himself at her, knowing that with her superior strength she could handle it, and grabbed her into a tight hug to end all tight hugs. He swung her around, babbling about the springtime of their youth being together and all sorts of other sweet things while Hikari laughed and cried tears of joy.

Sarutobi was ready to see the Center Realm again, so when Gai met him in one of the private rooms in the hospital he was almost as enthusiastic as the Green Beast. The two regarded one another silently for a moment before Gai laid down and nodded to the hokage.

"I shall see you in Center Realm Hokage-sama."

Sandaime nodded and Gai went to sleep, the hokage following him quickly after assigning two ANBU to watch the room and make sure that no one entered.

Hikari was desperately trying to end the battle she was in so that she wouldn't be late to her wedding. She slashed and fought with a fervor that was almost demonic, her eyes glowing brightly with each renewed attack. She fought back to back with Jocobo and the two of them mowed through the enemy like a red hot sword through flesh and soon enough the enemy was gone and the troop was making its way back to their encampment. She bid Jocobo a fond farewell and ordered him back to his tent to rest as she retrieved a healer for him. She checked on her other men and did a quick run down before heading to her own tent and changing into slightly nicer clothing than her armor. She put on a flowing, delicate aqua blouse covered with violet and red butterflies of all sizes and the only skirt that she had ever owned. It had been a gift from one of the ladies of the orphanage on Phoenix and was a pale aqua color that almost exactly matched her single natural eye. She forwent shoes and placed a chain mail anklet around her right ankle, a gift from one of the children she had loved so much. She tucked her shukusen into her sash and the knife that she'd 'borrowed' from Jocobo into her waistband and laid on her bed, falling asleep in moments with a wistful smile on her face.

Sandaime could see that Gai was nervous as hell. He was wringing his hands together and shredding grass as he paced, waiting for his soon to be bride to arrive in the realm of dreams. Sandaime couldn't help the wave of perverse pleasure he felt at seeing the usually confidant jounin acting like an expectant father. He was about to attempt to calm his enthusiastic subordinate when he heard a voice very much like the sound of a rusted bell ring out through the realm.

"Gai-kun!"

Sandaime looked toward where the voice had originated from and was stunned at what he saw. A woman was running toward them and she was one of the loveliest women that the hokage had ever seen. She ran up and jumped into Gai's arms, her thinner arms wrapping tightly around Gai as he swung her around once and planted her feet on the ground. She yanked his head down and gave him a searing kiss that lasted longer then the hokage thought was actually possible, so he thoughtfully cleared his throat to gain their attention. The change in the woman was startling. At the sound of his cough she had disengaged from Gai and pulled a shukusen and a knife before the hokage actually registered the fact that she had let go of Gai. She stood in a very protective position in front of the jounin and Sandaime thought he actually heard a growl come from the woman's throat. Gai quickly placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

"My Iron Lily, this is the Sandaime Hokage of Konoha. Sandaime-sama, this is my bride to be Hikari."

Sandaime watched as Hikari blushed three shades of red and quickly bowed, stammering apologies.

"I am so sorry Hokage-sama, I didn't realize...please, it isn't Gai's fault-"

"It's alright Hikari-san. Now, I understand that I have a wedding to officiate?"

Hikari lit up and nodded vigorously before grabbing Gai's arm and dragging him over to the brook. The hokage followed with a small smile on his face and they quickly commenced with the wedding. Neither Hikari, nor Gai could wipe the smiles off of their faces as they took the vows that would bind them as husband and wife forever. At the end of the short ceremony Hikari took out the knife and slashed her palm, doing the same with Gai's and closed her eyes, not concerned about the confusion she saw on the men's faces.

"By the magic of my heart, bind him to mine. By the magic of my life, bind him to mine. By the magic of my soul, bind him to mine. By magic and by nature make us one in blood and heart."

There was a white flash, mixed with the violet of Hikari's natural magic and then the sky cleared and the rings that Gai and Hikari had traded began to glow softly with a violet light that was just subdued enough to be unnoticeable in the light of day. Hikari grinned at her new husband and Gai watched in something akin to awe as her facial tattoo changed to reflect her new name, _Maito_ being slowly inked onto her face with magic.

Sarutobi bid the newly weds a good night before blinking out of the Center Realm to add Hikari's name to the books as a married ninja and change Gai's marital status. While he did that Hikari and Gai lay side-by-side next to a fire that Hikari had built and watched the sunset over the Center Realm. Later they consummated their marriage long into the night, taking advantage of the stamina they were both gifted with through the hard work they'd done all their lives.


	7. Chapter 7

1Chapter Seven: Time's Up

It had been eight months since Gai and Hikari's wedding and the time had come for the Dragon Corps, the name that Hikari's force of now 389 men had adopted after the battle on Phoenix, to go on their final mission. She watched with a heavy heart and a nervous twitch as they loaded up onto the HV959 carrier that would drop them on Orion and leave them to their deaths. Hikari was the last one on the carrier and sighed deeply as the door closed behind her. She clenched her hand, taking comfort in the pinch of her wedding band and kept her mind off Gai and on the mission in front of her. They had to at least make a showing on Orion before she could pull her trump card and get them out of there and out of the hands of the senate, but she had no idea how many of her men she would lose in the process.

"Alright boys, listen up!"

The men turned to look at her attentively, waiting to hear how their leader was going to get them out of this. She was upset that she couldn't get them all out.

"Guys, I'm gonna be frank. We have a snowball's chance in hell of making it out of here alive, which is exactly what the senators are hoping for. I have a plan that might, and I stress the word _might_, get us out of this alive, but don't get your hopes up. We're just going to have to fight for as long as we can and set whatever charges we can..."

Hikari trailed off as an idea struck her, a manic grin taking over her face beneath her face mask. She turned to her demolitions men, who were slowly backing away at the insane look on her face.

"What kind of explosives do you all have and how many?"

The demolitions chief was slow to answer.

"We each have fourteen XMV heavy explosives, forty-five hand grenades and three Halcion Vectors. I have an additional twelve Killroy Harbringers on me. Why?"

Hikari looked at him in mild surprise.

"How in the hell can you carry all that stuff on you?"

The Chief shrugged and Hikari shook herself back to the present problem.

"Bah! Okay, here's the plan..."

Hikari spun and blocked the blade-like claws of a hyena type before ducking the barbed and poisonous tongue of a lizard type and slashing her right fan through the throat of another hyena type. The fight was not going well for her and her men, in fact one could say without a shadow of a doubt that they were losing. Badly. They had gone after the core reactor on Orion, which was the central hub of Urll!vas conquest because it was where they tapped into the core of a planet to basically suck it dry of the energy it required to spin. They would leech off a planet until there was no energy remaining in the planet and it stopped spinning, then they would leave a motionless, dead planet in their wake and move on to the next one. As they did this to the planet's core, they were also depleting the planet's natural resources, killing everything on the surface long before the core would stop turning. They had managed, by the grace of whatever God existed, to get to the reactor and get in without anyone noticing, a feat previously thought impossible, and immediately began their attack, making their way toward the main 'open' room. The 'open' room was where the reactor actually accessed the planet's core and they needed direct access to the core in order for Hikari's outrageous and suicidal plan to have any chance at all of working. Her men held for longer then she had expected before the first one had fallen, one of her five medics had taken a clawed hand through the stomach. Then they fell rather steadily after that until the time when they finally reached the 'open' room, but they had achieved their mission and not a single one of the fifteen men of the demo crew had been killed. Injured, yes, but none of them were dead and that was all that mattered.

"Chief! You guys get those explosives timed and set, then toss 'em in! We'll hold 'em off at the bottleneck!"

The Chief saluted and the demo crew got to work setting all their charges.

The Xavier Metalloid Valence (XMV) Heavy Explosives were created during the middle years of the war and were some of the most powerful explosives in existence. They depended not on the splitting of atoms, like a nuclear weapon once did, but rather on the forming of chemical bonds. True nuclear _fusion_. Very few soldiers were capable or educated enough to use an XMV, but the Chief's crew was one of the best and all were certified to carry them, arm them and detonate them at their discretion. The next most powerful explosives the group had were the Halcion Vectors. The Vectors were created at the very beginning of the war and were primarily an incendiary device, easy to use so all demo crews had at least three with them at all times and they were great for urban settings.

The most powerful weapons, also the smallest demolitions available, were the Killroy Harbringers. The Harbringers were about the size of a standard paperback book, but they were solid metal. All the explosive and mechanism inside were infused directly into the metal during forging, thus they had to be forged by hand. Each one held enough pure Raidomite, a mineral only found on planets around dead stars, to rival eight thousand Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons. With twelve of them falling into the core of a planet the size of Orion, which was about equal to what it was believed Mars was, the planet didn't stand a chance.

The demo team threw everything they had into the core of the planet while the others fought the Urll!vas to a dead stop in the bottleneck of the hallway.

"Sergeant Major! It's done! You've got two minutes!"

Hikari nodded distractedly, stabbed a hyena type before sheathing her weapons and falling back toward the back wall. She wiped her hand through a slash mark on her lower back that was still bleeding sluggishly and quickly drew spell symbols on the wall in an arc, then she placed her hands together and made sure to get lots of blood on them.

"_Ishana varashe kellini. Wav-sak kkenthi oussa varelekna. Iiseii. Iiseii. IISEII!"_

_I request safety. By the anchors set. Allowance. Allowance. Allowance_

The spell was an odd one, one that Hikari had run into purely on accident when she was in the Ariel Library looking for something that might help her save her men. It was the only spell in existence that could tear through dimensions and allow passage from one to another through the Center Realm. It was extraordinarily dangerous for the one executing the spell, as it required that the party be bleeding throughout the ritual and the executor had to be the last one through. The portal would stay open for an additional minute after the executor passed through and then collapse. It was so risky that Hikari had disregarded it at first, but thanks to her photographic memory had remembered it, so when she'd come up with her nutso idea it had been perfect. Now all she could hope was that this didn't kill her.

Jocobo felt the massive surge in mage energy and turned to look at his sister in awe. He'd never felt anything like it and he was sure no one else had either. He watched as the portal blinked into existence. The consistency of water, the portal was a shifting, flowing mass of pink, green and the violet of Hikari's mage energies. It was truly an awe inspiring and beautiful thing to watch.

"Alright everyone, get your asses through the portal!"

Hikari's strained voice broke Jocobo out of his trance and he watched as man after man ran through the gateway, winding up in their new homes. Hikari had specifically made it so that the portal would shift worlds to deposit her men in the worlds that they would do best in, but still keep the groups together as the men wished them to be. The medics wound up with their fire-line friends, who ended up with their buddies and mates in the espionage group and so on until the only ones who hadn't gone through were the demo guys, Jocobo and Hikari herself. Hikari stared at the demo guys, sweat dotting her brow as blood leaked from numerous wounds, making her slightly dizzy.

"What are you guys still doing here? You've got about a minute to get into that damn portal before this place goes!"

"We want to go with you two."

"We know you're going somewhere different, but we want to go with you. We even voted and it was unanimous."

Hikari stared at the demo group as they all nodded, but slowly a smile spread onto her face and she nodded. She closed her eyes and felt for the anchors that she had given to her friends in Konoha. The first was the diamond and blood necklace that she had given to Gai, the second a leather and blood ruby wrist band that she had given the hokage. She had told him that he should always wear it because it brought good luck onto the wearer, she didn't mention to either of them that they were her foci. She felt them blaze to life in her mind, though the two wearers would know nothing about the activation, and immediately shifted the portal to follow the signature of the anchors. The portal lost its pink sheen and turned a deep green, like the first green of spring on the semi-tropical planet Roku, and flashed once.

"Go, I'll be right behind you!"

The Chief nodded and the demo guys ran through the portal just as the remaining Urll!vas crashed through the door that the fighters had barricaded not three minutes before.

"Shit! Jocobo, get through the portal!"

"What about you?"

Hikari moved one hand from its position in front of the portal and slashed at the first lizard type with her new claws before gathering energy in her hand and accessing her energy whip. She glared at Jocobo, not that he could see it, but he'd felt the heat from it often enough that he could tell when she was.

"_Go_. I'll follow. Hurry, we've got less than thirty seconds."

Jocobo looked very undecided, but it didn't last long as he threw himself through the portal. Hikari sighed and moved toward the portal herself, raising her hands over her head as she hurried toward it. A loud explosion and great shaking caused her to stumble and she began to run, diving into the portal with a shout. She didn't notice the whip-like tongue follow.


	8. Chapter 8

1Chapter Eight: Fighting and Home

The chuunin exams were not going the way that they were supposed to be going. Everything had been fine up until the sand genin's fight with Uchiha Sasuke. That had apparently been the signal for the combined forces of the Sand village and the Sound village to attack the exam's host village and every Konoha nin was fighting one or more enemies, now including the hokage himself. Sarutobi stood on the roof across from his old student Orochimaru, who had just summoned the souls and bodies of the first and second hokages. Four of Orochimaru's Sound nins were surrounding them, obviously about to do something to keep anyone from helping the hokage and then a large archway had appeared out of nowhere and was now beginning to glow.

Wait a second. _Archway?_

Sarutobi looked at the archway curiously, knowing that his wayward student was doing the same and both were shocked into immobility when a series of sixteen men ran through it, not being able to stop until they were beyond the four Sound nins.

"What the-"

One of the running men turned quickly and stared at the portal while another hurried up beside him.

"Where is she Jocobo?"

"I don't know Chief."

"She'd better hurry. Those things are gonna go off right-"

A sound similar to that of rolling thunder in the distance came from the portal and both men paled.

"Now. Shit, she's got to get out of there!"

While the two were concerned with their own thing and the four kages watched curiously, the Sound four erected their barrier. Just as another body fairly _flew_ through the portal, followed closely by what looked like a pinkish green whip. The body saw the barrier snap into place and immediately the person flipped over, making sure to hit with their back. Orochimaru watched in glee, waiting for the person to show everyone why this barrier was impenetrable. The person hit and a flash of bright pink light came from where their back hit the shield, but instead of disintegrating like the snake sannin thought they would, they merely fell to the ground, barely getting their feet beneath them.

"Son of a bitch that hurts!"

The person's voice was rough, but what shocked them was what happened next. The person shook their head and stumbled before freezing. It was like they'd heard something that seemed threatening and were trying to figure it out. They cocked their head to one side before whipping their head around to look at Sarutobi, acknowledged him and then snapped their head aroudn to _glare_ at Orochinaru. The voice he now used was a hissing, almost serpentine tone.

"_Necromancy_? Am I sensing that correctly? You dare to do this...this..._abomination?_"

Orochimaru smirked and turned to the dead hokages, having already placed them under his control.

"Kill him. Leave the old man to me."

Hikari was pissed at the thought that anyone could resort to necromancy for anything. She knew the theories and the rituals, but she had never been able to force herself to delve that far into the darker energies of the universe. She was far too bright and using that kind of energy would have dulled her spirit and called to her until she was addicted like a street whore to illicit drugs. She shuddered as she fell into a loose stance and gripped the fans folded and strapped to her back, grateful that they had survived her collision with the barrier where a lot of her armor had not. She winced as the air agitated the muscles now exposed on her back where the armor was disintegrated and took the skin with it and vowed to hurt every single one of the little pricks holding that barrier. She braced herself as the man that she recognized from Gai's descriptions as the first hokage ran straight at her, but she didn't get to do anything because right at that moment a lizard type leapt through the portal and his barbed tongue wrapped around Hikari's throat as his clawed hands grabbed her hips. She hollered as the poisoned barbs tore into her neck and the claws sank past her armor and into her hipbone.

_"Urgn grol farshana."_

Hikari twisted out of the grip of his claws and grabbed the tongue, violet hues surrounding the hand.

"No. You're the one who's dead. _Illirna!_"

There was a flash of violet lightning and then violet fire raced up the thing's tongue and soon it was nothing but ash, its dying screams echoing across the tile roof they'd landed on. The wounds on Hikari's neck began to bleed in earnest, but nothing too serious. The poison was slowed immensely by the fact that Hikari was mostly immune to it, but she knew that she would regret not noticing the lizard earlier. She turned to the two dead hokages and her eyes practically _glowed_. Jocobo smiled gleefully and whooped.

"Whoo-hoo! Sarge's pissed now!"

The ANBU and most of the jounin that were in the stadium watched as Hikari was surrounded by a violet haze and they could see her eyes glowing behind the visor that blocked her eyes from view. The dead hokages didn't even get the chance to prepare as she vanished and reappeared in front of them, hooking her right leg around and into the side of Shodaime's head, spinning and putting a fist in Nidaime's gut. The Nidaime stumbled, but kept his feet and threw a heavy blast of water at Hikari while the Shodaime recovered his feet. Hikari almost panicked when a thick group of vines crawled quickly up her body and bound her hands to her sides, lifting her into the air. She grinned viciously, though no one could see it, and her aura caught fire and burned away the vines, vaporizing the water that had been thrown at her again. She placed her hands into 'c' shapes and spun, flinging her arms out once they started to glow a dull red. The resulting mage shackles clamped down onto the two Hokages' arms and legs, fully preenting them from moving. They watched as she pulled a knife from her belt and sliced at those glowing eyes, pulling the knife out from behind the visor to show that there was blood on it.

"By the blood of sight."

She brought the knife down to slice at the wounds in her sides, pulling a small amount of blood from her lungs as the hokages struggled to their feet.

"By the blood of Life."

The Chief watched, stunned, as his leader began a ritual that no one thought she could, or would, even attempt. He turned to Jocobo, who also looked stunned.

"I thought you said that the boss couldn't do any necromantic rituals!"

"It wasn't that she couldn't, but that she didn't want to. She didn't want to delve that deeply into the one art that depended almost soley on dark energies."

"So what do you call that?" Chief gestured wildly at Hikari, who was now bringing the knife to her hand. Jocobo shrugged as he watched her slice deeply into her own hand.

"Something new."

"By the blood of touch."

Hikari brought the knife up to her chest. She had to get this part exactly right or she ran the risk of truly killing herself. Hikari was not happy about using a necromantic ritual, it was something that she'd sworn she'd never do if she ever had the choice, but...well she didn't have a choice on this one. She couldn't eliminate the abominations because she didn't know what the controller mechanism was, so the only other option was a full resurrection. She knew that she was skating the line between the 'grey arts' and the 'black arts', but she figured that since she hadn't actually raised them, nor had she pulled their souls from wherever they were that she would be okay. Especially since she wasn't actually using a true sacrifice. She raised the knife over her head, aimed carefully and clenched her eyes shut as she rammed the thin blade into her own heart.

The pain was incredible.

Hikari gasped for breath and tried to block out the pain, but it was unlike anything she had ever felt. More even then being tortured, but she knew that it only meant that she'd hit the only part of the heart that she could without killing herself. She'd sliced just to the right of her heart, nicking the muscle and just barely gathering blood from within on the blade. It was not life threatening for her. She pulled the knife out and stared straight into the eyes of the dead, which looked shocked even through the control the snake man had over them, and smirked.

"By the blood of sacrifice. I call the souls of the dead to remember. Remember what you created. Remember what you lived for, protected and nurtured," she crouched, wincing at the pain in her hips at the motion, and stabbed the blade into the ground.

"Remember what you died for!"

Jocobo let out a yell of horror as he watched his little sister stab herself in the chest, the Chief echoed the sound and the ninja around them were just as shocked.

"What the hell is boss doing? Huh Chief?"

The Chief turned to Danno, one of his best demo guys, and shrugged, still stunned.

"I don't know, but I don't like it."

A flash of light drew their attention back to the barrier and all were shocked to see that the two men she'd been set to fight against were shaking their heads, looking around in a confused manner before realization dawned in their eyes and they both hurried to the soldier, who had finally gone down due to pain and exhaustion. Both ran toward the barrier, not giving a damn about the consequences, but both were stopped by ANBU, one with a raven mask and one with a cat mask.

"You can't do that. The barrier will kill you."

"Then take it down!"

"We've been trying, but even if we did have it down you wouldn't be allowed near the fight."

Jocobo glared at the cat mask ANBU and actually growled. He towered over the diminutive ANBU, but she wasn't backing down.

"That is my little sister in there! The hell I won't go in!"

The ANBU looked from Jocobo and the Chief to Hikari, now being protected by the two hokages while Orochimaru fought the third.

"Sister?"

Hikari had never actually fainted due to pain before, so waking up was a novel experience. She blinked rapidly and found herself staring at the Sandaime hokage, just as Orochimauru was approaching for the death blow, Kusanagi coming out of his mouth. Shodaime and Nidaime knew that they could never get to their old friend in time and could do nothing but watch as his death approached. Hikari was not so burdened.

"Anchor two, Blood Ward!"

The leather and blood ruby wrist band that Sarutobi had taken to wearing began to glow before a shield burst to life in front of him, just in time for Orochimaru to slam face first into it. Kusanagi shattered in the impact with the impenetrable ward and Hikari found herself in a quandary. To laugh at the misfortune of your enemy, or not to laugh. How much would it hurt her to laugh? Hikari grinned. To hell with it. She let loose and the field froze at the sound of raspy, yet delicate laughter. Orochimaru glared at the soldier and growled before turning to the now two hokages facing off against him. The Nidaime had joined the Sandaime while the Shodaime protected Hikari.

"This is far from over Sarutobi-sensei! I will raze Konoha to the ground and you will die by my hand!"

Before anyone could react he and the four barrier holders took off, finally ending the invasion of Konoha. Hikari looked on after them, frustrated at not being able to hunt them down, as Jocobo and the others ran toward her to make sure she was okay. Only the Shodaime heard her response, it was far too quiet.

"And we will be ready and waiting snake. The dragon will be here and you will lose."

With this Hikari once again passed into the realm of unconsciousness.

I am having a little trouble with chapter ten and on, so please bare with me as I try to hash out the ideas running around in my head. If you have any suggestions as to what you want to happen, please tell me and I'll give it considerable consideration. Thanks.


	9. Chapter 9

1Chapter nine: Hospitals and Introductions

Gai was just coming down from his battle high when he walked into the hospital to find his wayward students. Tenten was with Neji, standing just beside his bed in Lee's room where the doctor on duty was running a quick scan and shaking his head.

"I'm sorry Rock-san, but if you persist in training as hard as you currently are you will damage your body even further and then I doubt even the sannin Tsunade would be able to help you."

The boy sat dejectedly on the bed and Gai could see that Neji was about to make one of his typically scathing remarks, but before the boy could verbally attack his teammate a commotion across the hall gained the attention of all in the room.

"Look, we can take care of boss lady! We do not need you screwing up her systems!"

"She's injured badly and I doubt any of you have the skill necessary to help her now let me through!"

"No! Baldar, get the bleeding stopped and see if you can repair her heart. I swear I'm gonna kill her for doing that."

"Is he a medic? And how did she wind up with a hole in her heart anyway?"

"Yes he's a medic, in fact he's the only medic who can get her armor off, so leave him to do his damn job. As for how she got hurt...never mind. Ask the...hokage? I think he said he was."

They heard the medic nin sigh.

"Fine. What's her name so that I can at least put it on the door?"

"Hikari. She just got married though, so I'm not sure of her last name."

"Hey Joco, doesn't she have a conscript tat?"

"Yeah, but she changed the code so that only her husband would be able to disengage it. Until we find him or she wakes up we won't be able to take off the headgear."

Gai peeked his head through the door, not noticing that his students had followed him into the hallway. In the room were Kakashi and his team, a strange, but very large man and a smaller man, both wearing armor that was vaguely familiar to Gai. Along with them was a medic nin and the patient on the bed and Gai suddenly remembered where he'd seen the type of armor before. Lying on the bed with a medic hovering over her healing what he could reach through her heavily damaged armor was his wife.

"Iron Lily!"

Gai moved faster then even Lee or Kakashi could see and had Hikari in his arms, cradling her body close. He quickly struck the metal fixture shaped like a small dragon on her belt and the one that looked like a lily on her collar and the whole room watched in shock as the armor slowly crawled off her body to her belt, collar and back, where there were two unseen strips of metal waiting to receive the armor. The face mask and visor remained, but Gai took car of them quickly, reaching behind the woman's ear to hit the release buttons in a certain sequence that Hikari had made him memorize. Slowly the visor split in the center and retracted to the two linear metal repositories just behind her temples, under her hair while the face mask disappeared into the collar, laying her face bare for everyone to see. Hikari moaned slightly and pushed herself as close as she possibly could into Gai's arms, finally feeling safe for the first time in a long time. Gai pulled her flush against him and sat carefully on the bed, pulling her into his lap.

Hikari was confused, but she decided that she was quite happy being confused if she continued to be held like she was.

"Iron Lily? My Iron Lily you must wake."

"Gai, leave me alone."

Gai was being irritating, so Hikari took a swipe at him with her claws. Wait.

Gai?

Hikari's eyes shot open and instantly met Gai's. She saw the white walls and smelled the antiseptic scents that denoted a hospital, but none of that mattered. Gai was here. With her. In the real world.

"Gai!"

Hikari, ignoring the pain from her wounds, lunged up and attached her lips firmly to Gai's, the two of them kissing for far longer then should have been possible. Everyone was shocked at the sight. Neji, Lee, Tenten and Kakashi were slack-jawed and shocked silent, Naruto and Sasuke, along with Sakura and the other nins were appalled and Hikari's boys were shocked that she let him touch her. After she'd been raped during a training exercise she had barely allowed the medics to touch her, let alone touch her intimately enough to kiss her. Hikari pulled away from Gai only to bury her face in his chest and begin to purr.

"I missed you so much. I wasn't sure that the anchors would work, but I had no choice but to try and I'm so glad that I managed to find you and get here and did you see my men? Are they okay? What happened? Why was the old man being attacked? Why-"

Gai placed a finger to her lips to stop her babble and laughed.

"Ah my most youthful Iron Lily! It is wonderful that you are here! You are injured though, how did you become so grievously injured when I know that you are one of the most powerful fighters I have ever known?"

"Well my youthful husband I was in a fight with my men, we blew up a planet, I created an impossible portal, did some necromantic ritual after fighting a lizard type and brought back two hokages who were formerly dead," she looked at him seriously, except for the mischievous twinkle in her bi-colored eyes.

"It was a busy day."

Gai and Hikari stared at one another for a few seconds before both burst out into hysterical laughter and Hikari snuggled deeply into Gai's embrace, resting her head on his shoulder and slowly falling asleep as her laughter died away.

Everyone watched as Gai smiled peaceably down at the woman in his arms before carefully and quietly shifting her to the bed. She grabbed onto his arm with a death grip and refused to let go and honestly Gai really didn't want to pry her off, so he sat in the chair at the side of her bed and watched the woman he'd married sleep until the clearing of a throat had him looking at his 'eternal rival'.

"Yes my rival?"

Gai's voice was intentionally soft for the man knew how lightly Hikari usually slept and even though he suspected that she was in a deep, healing sleep and wouldn't be woken by talking he didn't want to take the chance. Kakashi looked at Gai and then eye-smiled.

"Gai, who is she?"

Gai saw the same question reflected in the eyes of everyone around him and his smile brightened.

"This is Maito Hikari. My wife."

Jocobo's following smile had just a tinge of insanity behind it as he finally met the man who had married his little sister.

"So you're the one who brought sis out of her shell?"

Gai nodded and Jocobo's smile widened to complete insanity.

"I'm thankful to you, as are all the men, but a word of warning," Jocobo sidled up beside Gai and leaned down to put a hand on the man's shoulder.

"If you hurt Kari in any way, shape or form you will not survive. There is a reason I'm called the Harbirnger, after all."

Chief came up on Gai's other side and joined with Jocobo.

"And I am a demolitions expert. Between my men and I, there won't be enough left of you for identification. Are we being totally clear?"

Gai nodded and the two toned down on the insanity and nodded in return.

"Good! We'll leave you here then. C'mon Chief, let's go find out what's going on with the men."

With that Jocobo and Chief walked out of the hospital room to tell the men that Hikari was in good hands...and that they had already threatened her husband with bodily harm if he dared to hurt her. The Konoha nins watched as the odd pair left and then turned to regard the other odd pair...Gai and his _wife._ None of them could really wrap their minds around that. Gai was _married_...to someone who could obviously fight better then anyone they'd seen since the Yondaime. Kakashi remembered the way the woman had fought while trapped in the dome with Orochimaru, the resurrected hokages and the third and found himself in awe of her. She had held her own against that lizard thing and then freed the Sho and Nidaimes before helping the Sandaime and delivering a blow to Orochimaru by getting rid of the Kusanagi. She had done all this while obviously grievously wounded, which only made Kakashi's respect for the woman rise, but...it was Gai. What could she see in him that no one else seemed to?

The first three Hokages of Konoha stood in the office of the third, waiting for the strangers to be escorted in by the ANBU that Sarutobi had sent after them. They all sat as the messengers knocked on the door and showed the sixteen men in, the woman still unconscious in the hospital. Sarutobi, still tired form his battle with Orochimaru, looked the two leaders over and noted that they were both heavily built and both looked very world-worn.

"Please allow me to welcome you to the village of Konohagakure no sato. I am the Sandaime Hokage and the two gentlemen on my left are the Shodaime and Nidaime Hokages. Now, would you mind explaining what happened this afternoon? How did you get here?"

The one with that Sarutobi recognized as 'Chief' looked at the other and nodded for him to explain. The other stepped forward and bowed.

"My name is Jocobo and this is Chief. The men behind us are Chief's crew of demolition guys while I am Kari's second in command. We're from a dimension parallel to this one where war has torn our world to shreds. We are all members of a fighting force that is made up of conscripts, soldiers forced to join the army in one way or another. My brother was killed and my nieces threatened with death unless I joined. Chief was threatened with execution for treason, but Hikari was the worst. She was taken from her home country and conscripted at the age of eight. She's never known anything but war. Anyway, we were given an impossible mission, and when I say it was impossible I mean it was impossible."

"Impossible for everyone or just impossible for your merry band of misfits?"

Jocobo glared at the man behind them wearing a wolf mask.

"I don't know, four hundred against a planet of nearly three _billion_. What do you think?"

The ANBU member reared back slightly and everyone in the room paled at the thought of having to go up against that many enemies. The Shodaime stared at Jocobo.

"So how did you wind up here, alive?" Jocobo sighed.

"That was all Hikari. She realized that there was no way for us to achieve our mission objectives and still survive, so she had to think of a way that was...unorthodox to say the least. Basically she had the demo guys blow up the planet, thus eliminating the threat it posed, simultaneously with her breaking about six rules of the universe and tearing a hole into the Center Realm to get to other dimensions. She got the other survivors, all two hundred and sixty of them, to realms that they could survive in and then used anchors that she has in this world to send the remainder of us here before the planet imploded on itself. We didn't realize that one of them had managed to get through the portal before the planet was destroyed and we sure as hell didn't expect to get launched out of the portal like that. Man, Kari is gonna be pissed when she finally comes to all the way. She used a necromantic spell and even though she managed to put a light spin on it...its still really dark energy that she used. I hope she'll be okay with it..."

"What has that to do with anything?"

Jocobo looked at the Nidaime, then at Chief, who nodded again and stepped forward.

"What Boss Lady did to free you two from that thing's control was the darkest bit of mage energy that she's used so far in her life. She hates even the _thought_ of necromancy, the art of raising and controlling the dead, and she swore to herself that she would never use it when she gained the title of 'level ten, black trim' mage. Even though she managed to turn it into more of a gray ritual by using her own blood and her own sacrifice, for which I will be yelling at her later, it is still inherently an evil thing to do. Now I would like you all to answer a question of mine, Jocobo, that means you too."

The men nodded and Chief continued.

"When the hell did Boss Lady get married and how? I mean I know all the laws about unmarried conscripts staying unmarried, so how did she manage to not only get married, but marry someone from another _dimension_?"

Jocobo looked just as confused as Chief, and though Sandaime found it highly amusing, he decided that answering the question would be the best think he could do. So he told them all what Gai had told him, about how the two had met, courted and finally his involvement in their wedding and getting around the unfair laws of Hikari's home dimension. The men who had come with Hikari all nodded in understanding, glad that their leader had found a way to be happy, while the Konoha natives were appalled at the treatment of soldiers and were also glad that someone had managed to find a way around what they believed to be ridiculous and unfair laws. Finally the Sandaime sighed.

"Alright, I've already got Hikari on the list of inactive ninjas, I'll just have to transfer her to the active list, but I'm not quite sure what to do with all of you. Do you have any preferences? Any skills besides demolitions that you want to be licensed in or gain jobs in? Or would you all rather be trained as ninja and placed in the ranks?"

In the end about half of the demo crew had decided that their other skills would be more useful to the village then their demolitions training, although they would still practice to keep their skills sharp, but they preferred to go into a field that they were happy in. The other half decided that they would create Konoha's first explosives unit that would train as reserve nins, never to train beyond chuunin rank. It was agreed that Jocobo and Hikari would both stay on the inactive list for a while, at least until Hikari was fully healed, and then they would decide on what they wanted to do together. Then their attentions turned to finding somewhere for all of the new residents to live. They finally decided that the men would live together in a small house that had stood unused for years on the edge of the forest while Hikari would live with Gai. As the soldiers were led out of the office by two ANBU, to take them to their new home, Sandaime sighed and looked at his two predecessors and braced himself to explaining things to them. What he was dreading most though was having to explain to them why 3/4 of the population hated one blond haired gennin. He was not looking forward to that particular explanation.

Sorry it's so short, but I couldn't think of anything else to put in this chapter. The next one will jump right into life as Hikari wakes up from her healing sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

1

Chapter Ten: Waking, Loving and Training

Hikari was warm when she woke, and for once she was in a good mood and very comfortable. She looked at the ceiling of the room she was in and her good mood fled and fear replaced it.

_Hospital? Who...what? Was I brought in for questioning again? Where are my boys? What-_

"Mmm...Iron Lily..."

Hikari nearly gave herself whiplash with how quickly her head turned to regard the man beside the hospital bed she was laying in. Maito Gai, the man whom she had fallen in love with and married, was sitting in what had to be an uncomfortable position, slumped in a plastic chair, his chin on his chest and one hand clasped with hers, asleep. She smiled slightly, calmed immensely and reached over to grab a hold of Gai's green outfit. She'd never seen him in it, but it wasn't unexpected considering that his whole aura was saturated with the bright color, so it didn't bother her in the least. She lifted him carefully and laid him beside her, her right arm not even straining from the effort.

_Sometimes,_ she thought,_ it's good to be a cyborg._

Gai stirred just enough to pull Hikari's injured body flush with his and hold her tightly. Hikari sighed and snuggled up close to him, burying her face into his chest and clutching his green top in her hands, falling into a healing sleep that was not only healing her body, but her mind and soul as well.

Kakashi sat in a booth at the dango stand with the other Kurenai and Asuma, who was smoking like a chimney, with his nose buried in his favorite book when Anko burst into the stand in her own inimitable way. She ordered three plates of dango and then hurried to sit beside her best friend Kurenai.

"Hello all! How are your students? And where's Gai? I haven't seen him since yesterday's invasion when normally I'll see him at least in the morning when he and that clone of his are running around."

"You know, you're right Anko. I haven't seen Gai since he went to the hospital to check on Lee, you Asuma?"

Asuma looked at Kurenai and shook his head.

"I haven't seen him either, how about you Kakashi?"

Kakashi turned a page and began giggling.

"I saw him at the hospital yesterday, he's probably still there with his wife."

CRASH

Anko dropped her plate while Kurenai looked at Kakashi wide-eyed and Asuma's cigarette dropped out of his mouth and onto the table, putting a small scorch mark on its wooden surface. Anko stood, bracing her hands against the table and leaned across, almost in Kakashi's face.

"His...what?"

"His wife. Lovely woman, hell of a fighter too."

Anko shook herself and sat heavily beside Kurenai.

"Gai is...married? When the hell did that happen? Why did none of us know this?"

Kakashi shrugged.

"No idea. You'll have to ask him."

Anko stood again and quickly headed for the door.

"I will."

The ominous undertone of a threat hung in the air for a few moments before all three of the other jounin stood, paid for the dango and took off to follow Anko.

Gai was a bit disoriented when he woke that afternoon. He looked around and realized he was in the hospital, but the last thing that he remembered was falling asleep in the chair beside...Hikari...

Gai's head snapped to where he could now feel a small body pressed against his and couldn't help the smile that spread across his lips at the sight of his wife curled into his chest. He frowned however when he saw the wounds that covered her small, lithe body and recalled that he still didn't know what kind of fights she'd been involved in the day before. She had heavy bandages around her neck and around her chest, but those were the only two that he could see. He had the feeling that she was more injured then he could tell. He could see dark circles under her eyes and her face looked gaunt and drawn as she'd obviously not been getting any sleep recently, but it made him curious as to what had been going on in her dimension to have all this happen to her. Gai didn't have any more time to ponder his wife's poor condition as the door to the room burst open and he caught a glimpse of Anko leaping into the room, following a handful of thrown kunai. Gai was in a bad position and quickly moved himself to block Hikari from the projectiles, putting his back to them and bracing for the impact that never came. He felt his necklace, hidden beneath the green clothing he so loved, became almost scorching and a red shield snapped up to take the impact. Hikari jerked in his arms, her body going into a short seizure as she gritted her teeth and growled, her words just audible to the jounin who walked into the room.

"Not hurt, not hurt, not hurt, _die_ before I let hurt..."

The seizure lasted a few seconds before she relaxed and the shield dropped, the kunai falling to the floor in shattered pieces. Hikari curled further into Gai's chest and her growling became purring as she fell into deep sleep. The jounin could only watch in shock as the woman snuggled into Gai's hideous clothing and became unconscious again while Gai watched her with a very affectionate gaze. The green jounin turned to his friends and his voice was back to a normal tone, now positive that his wife wouldn't wake for anything short of an apocalypse.

"Hello my most youthful friends. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?"

Anko walked from where she had rolled after her grand entrance and sat in the chair beside the bed, crossing her arms over her chest while Asum, Kurenai and Kakashi all leaned against the wall, the silver haired jounin pulling out his trademark orange book.

"Well Gai, we heard about the little lady there and wondered when you got married."

"Yeah, and why weren't we invited?"

Gai had opened his mouth to answer when the door was once again opened and the men Jocobo and Chief entered, followed closely by the third hokage. Jocobo was wearing a typical jounin uniform, though without the vest, while Chief was in his usual under armor clothing, which consisted of a skin-tight turtleneck and a pair of close-fitting black pants with his normal combat boots. The two looked at their boss/sister in the arms of the large jounin and where Chief smiled at the pair, Jocobo growled.

"Remember what I said Greeny. You hurt Boss Lady and I'll hurt you. Got it?"

Gai nodded amicably and the three Hokages smiled in amusement. That is, until everyone noticed that they were in the room and that the Sho and Nidaimes were real.

"Holy fucking shit!"

All the jounin secretly agreed with Anko's declaration, though none of them were so bold as to announce it to all and sundry. Gai chuckled softly as Hikari attempted to pull herself even closer to him, but was unsuccessful because it simply wasn't possible. She frowned in her sleep and her body glowed violet for a second, Gai's body flashing with a green aura before both faded away and Hikari smiled again. Jocobo snorted in amusement as the others in the room watched in utter confusion. The snort caused everyone's collective gaze to shift to Jocobo.

"What was that all about?" Jocobo snickered.

"That, my friends, was Boss Lady pulling off a bit of your buddy's soul and giving him a piece of hers. She must really want to get close to him."

Anko clenched her fists and growled at Jocobo.

"His _soul_? She took a piece of his soul?"

"Calm down lady! Like I said, she took a piece of his and replaced it with a piece of hers. It was an even trade that basically allows Boss Lady to give the dude energy or even absorb injuries from him long distance if necessary. They will now know without a doubt that they are never alone. It isn't a bad thing at all."

The nin in the room considered this for a few moments before Gai sighed and nodded at Anko.

"It is alright Anko-chan. I understand what she did. She is looking for comfort from me and I will give it. Do not worry. I know that she will never hurt me."

Anko huffed and leaned against a nearby wall, Kakashi doing the same as Kurenai and Asuma take the chairs on the far side of the bed while the Sandaime took the chair directly beside the bed. Shodaime and Nidaime stood behind him and Jocobo and Chief stood on the far side of the room on either side of the window, looking out over the village. The Shodaime leveled a look at Gai, who was looking at Hikari.

"Maito-san? How is she?"

Gai looked up, a bit startled at the softly-spoken question, and smiled slightly.

"She is healing Shodaime, but she is still injured. I fear that she is more injured then I can see without taking off her bandages."

"Which I'm sure is exactly what you want to do, eh bro?"

Gai stuttered and tried to come up with a response to Chief's uncouth and vulgar suggestion, but soon simply gave up and snorted, turning his attention back onto Hikari. Hikari stretched her body out, moving in her sleep to try to relieve some of the pain she'd been in, consequently rubbing against Gai's body. Luckily, Gai had immense self control and merely smiled at his wife. He was at peace and even the voices of those around him could snap him out of it until the Sandaime addressed him directly.

"So Gai, what do you think Hikari-san will want to do when she wakes up?"

"Besides jump his bones you mean?"

Sarutobi glared at Jocobo, who placed his hands up in a complacent gesture, and turned back to Gai.

"Well Hokage-sama, I think that she will want to placed with my most youthful team. If you would allow, we can co-teach."

"Can she teach kids?"

Chief and Jocobo both snickered, pulling the attention of all to them. Chief smiled and nodded.

"Dude, Boss Lady was the favorite of every single child at the Green Haven Orphanage, and there were just about two thousand of them. If she could put up with almost two thousand kids between the ages of 2 months to nineteen years then I'm positive that she can deal with whatever team of misfits you put her with."


End file.
